Articles

As we publish these reports from Democratic Socialist Movement
(DSM - CWI in South Africa) activists on the ground, reports are coming
in of a spreading of the miners’ struggle, with a dispute of similar
characteristics and demands having broken out at Anglo Platinum mines,
in the same area. Workers are in rebellion against the NUM
representatives, and have set up committees to control the struggle from
below. More reports and analysis to follow soon...

socialistworld.net

At 7 AM on Monday August 20, 10 000 striking Lonmin workers and Marikana
community members gathered for a mass meeting in the fields outside the
hostels and slums where they live. Presided over by what remains, after
Thursday’s shooting left 34 workers dead and 78 wounded and
hospitalised, while 259 have been arrested (all according to police
figures), of the strike committee, the mass discussed the meaning of the
massacre, Lonmin’s refusal to negotiate, the media’s distortion of
events, how to deal with strike breaking, and how to locate and bury the
bodies of the dead. The company’s ultimatum to return to work the same
day or face dismissal was furiously rejected.

Lonmin claimed on Tuesday that a third of its 28 000 workforce had gone
back to work. Despite this the mood among the workers remains determined
and defiant. Workers reported on Monday that those who were returning to
work were taken back to the shafts forcefully by the police.

During the weekend, workers had withdrawn from the “mountain” where they
had gathered up until then. The area was quiet and people appeared
nervous and on guard. Police and mine security guards were posted at
checkpoints all over the area, with heavy armoured vehicles, rifles and
machine guns blocking access to the mine. A ministerial task team
appointed to deal with the situation did not dare to set foot in
Marikana as planned on Monday.

Julius Malema, the former African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL)
who was recently expelled from the ANC, on the other hand, addressed a
mass meeting on Saturday. His Friends of the Youth League-outfit has
also arranged the lawyer representing the 259 workers who appeared in
court on Monday, on a number of charges including murder and is
threatening to sue the police officers involved in the shooting. He
launched scathing attacks on President Zuma and the hated National Union
of Mine workers (NUM) (where the leadership is part of the Zuma faction
of the ANC). One of Lonmin’s major shareholders is Cyril Ramaphosa, the
NUM-general-secretary-turned-capitalist and, incidentally, the head of
the ANC’s disciplinary appeals committee who delivered the devastating
expulsion ruling on Malema. Malema correctly pointed out that the
massacre was government acting in defence of Ramaphosa’s profits and
that the NUM had ceased to be a union and, through its investment arm,
become “a company”. This message resonates deeply with workers who have
experienced the counter-revolution within the former revolutionary NUM,
and indeed ANC, which Malema unfortunately aims to re-enter at this
stage rather than build a new workers’ force.

“This is not our government”, said women who on Saturday were protesting
in search for their men who had been missing since Thursday.

In a matter of three minutes on Thursday afternoon the class character
of the ANC government and the state machinery which the 3000 police
stationed around Marikana are part of was exposed to millions. This may
be a turning point in the class struggles in SA, which have been
intensifying so that in the past three years each day has seen on
average three mass protests.

The role of the media also stands mercilessly exposed to the workers at
Marikana. The hail of false claims (e.g. the stories about workers being
promised a 300% wage increase), omissions (e.g. how the violence was
started), distortion by toning down (e.g the initial number of dead
reported was 12) and exaggerating (e.g. how workers supposedly made
outrageous demands and then attacked the police because they were
“possessed” by a medicine man). The class hatred that has almost been
dripping off the editorials in particular, have all been taken to heart.
As a worker at Monday’s mass meeting said: “The same people who own
Lonmin own the media.”

The class consciousness of the capitalist ruling class has also been
sharpened, with the entire elite rallying behind the crushing of the
workers’ uprising. Rattled, the bosses of the platinum and gold mining
houses were in a meeting with Susan Shabangu on Saturday, apparently
trying to figure out how to impose law and order without new
embarrassments. Business Day, the most “serious” capitalist newspaper in
SA, is hammering home the point that the capitalist ruling class and all
its hangers-on must now rally behind the NUM – this message of course
remains wrapped up in euphemisms, but is still a crystal-clear admission
of the role this union plays as capital’s specialised HR department, and
worse.

Taking note of the concerted capitalist offensive, Rustenburg mine
workers are intensely aware of the need to unite and organise as
workers. While before the strike there were still wide layers of workers
who, though having seen the NUM for what it is were still reluctant to
abandon it for the untested alternative AMCU (Association of Mine
workers and Construction Union), the events of last week have definitely
sealed the NUM’s fate.

“The most burning issue now is to carry through the complete transfer of
the members in all shafts from NUM to AMCU”, said one of the workers,
and to find the bodies of everyone who was killed and bury them.

While the Lonmin strike is not lead by AMCU, and scepticism over it has
increased for many workers who feel it is not standing the test of the
strike well, it is clear that many, many workers will now join AMCU.
AMCU is a break-away from NUM that spent most of its twelve-year
existence out of the spotlight, without expressing any difference with
the Cosatu unions in principle. The ferment which met it on arrival on
the Rustenburg mines a couple of years ago appears to have overwhelmed
it. As workers marched out of NUM at Lonmin last year, and at Impala
Platinum and Anglo Platinum earlier this year, the AMCU has established
itself as the main alternative. Workers at Lonmin, like workers all over
the Rustenburg mines, decided to secure maximum unity in action by
forming a workers’ committee without links to either NUM or AMCU. The
AMCU leaders’ main focus at the moment seems to be to wash their hands
off the accusations of irresponsibility that are being poured over them
by the ruling elite. What role it will play going forward will be
determined by the extent to which workers can set it on a fighting,
socialist programme.

The Democratic Socialist Movement (CWI in South Africa) calls for a
local general strike in support of the Lonmin workers demand for a
living wage of R12 500 per month, for the formation of a Rustenburg-wide
workers and community forum comprised of delegates from all the mines
and the surrounding working class communities and for a national and
international day of action in protest against the massacre and in
support of the workers’ demands.

Already strikes are underway at two other Rustenburg mines over similar
demands. Lonmin workers report that the police stopped and turned away
three buses loaded with workers from Anglo Platinum, the world’s largest
platinum producer which was also recently rocked by a “wildcat” strike,
that were headed for the Monday mass meeting to show solidarity, and
that workers of various shafts around Rustenburg have taken solidarity
action.

South Africa: Mine worker massacre: workers imprisoned at mine shaft
over three days without charges

Reports of torture

On Saturday August 18, a group of about 100 women marched at the
entrance of Lonmin’s nr. 1 shaft, demanding to go inside and see their
men – brothers, husbands, fathers – whom they had not seen since the
police attack on Thursday.

According to the police, 34 were shot dead on Thursday, 78 wounded and
259 detained. The women protesting in front of the blocked entrance
say that many more are missing.

“I’m looking for my brother, said a young woman. I haven’t seen him
since Thursday. I can’t sleep or eat.”

“I got an sms from my brother, said another young woman, he said that
inside the shaft, they are forced to take off their clothes and the
police pour burning water [chemicals] on their bodies, red and blue
water. And they are beating them.”

The march, supported by comrades from the Democratic Socialist
Movement (CWI in South Africa) branch in nearby Matebeleng and student
leaders from the Tshwane University of Technology, proceeded to
Lonmin’s Andrew Saffy Hospital, having been told that the information
on who was being held by the police would be found there. At the
hospital the demonstration was met by a locked gate, armed security
guards and a Hippo (armoured vehicle). After about an hour’s heated
protest and negotiations with the hospital management and the security
guards, a small concession was won: the list of the hospitalised, dead
and arrested was released. But most of the group were not interested
in the list. “They haven’t put the real names”, said several of the
women. “People are scared, and the list does not tell you anything.”

Others explained that the aim of the march had been solely to access
the jailed workers, that they did not want to know at this stage who
had been killed, that they were not ready for a situation where some
among them would collapse and the protest would disintegrate. Darkness
had fallen and the women agreed to meet up the following day.

On Sunday, at the funeral of one of the policemen who were killed
during the clashes on August 13, SA’s newly appointed police
commissioner Riah Phiyega said that the police should not be sorry,
while the Lonmin management again presented the workers with an
ultimatum to return to work or face dismissal. The 259 men, dressed in
blood-stained clothes, some with make-shift bandages, appeared in
court on Monday after being held for more than three days without
charges. They were charged with murder, amongst other crimes, and kept
in custody.